Thursday, April 05, 2012

Mockingjay

Ach. I've been sitting on this review for almost 2 years, because at first I wanted to let it sink in. Then, I wanted to calm down a bit.

You guys, it's been almost 2 years. I haven't calmed down. I've just gotten more and more angry.

First off, the good stuff:

I read this in a sitting. I started reading and stayed reading until it was done. It's a gripping story.

I loved the further look into the dark side of the Capitol, the lengths they were willing to go to to keep down the population, the revelations about what really happens if you survive the Hunger Games.

I loved the fact that District 13 was no picnic either-- there are different types of bad. I liked how Katniss struggled with this.

Now the stuff that annoyed me:

Gale vs. Peeta. I feel like the "love triangle" took to much precedence in this book in way it hadn't in the first two. It was there, but seriously guys, THIS IS WHAT YOU'RE GOING TO DITHER ON ABOUT? Also, for it to be an actual love triangle, Katniss should have been a little more involved. I always thought she loved for both guys, but I never once believed that she loved either of them.

Katniss lost a lot of her agency. Every so often she stood up for or did what she thought was right, but in the end, she was a pawn of the revolution the same way the Capitol tried (and failed) to use her. While I understand that surviving two Hunger Games will break a person, she spent a lot of time staring at the wall and doing whatever everyone else told her to do. She stopped kicking ass. This may be realistic, but it made me sad.

Katniss pretty much loses contact with her mom at the end. For a book that was started when she tried to stand up for her family, this was something I didn't understand.

Now the stuff the MADE ME WANT TO SMASH:

The final battle. Now, the fact that figure head would be knocked out pretty early on and miss it? That I liked because it made it a bit more "real." The fact that, as a reader, the major climax we've waited three books for was summed up for after the fact? That's a craft flaw. And, I CANNOT BELIEVE I'M GOING TO SAY THIS, that's where Twilight is better. Because Meyer realized that she needed Bella to be out of commission for part of Breaking Dawn, so all of a sudden there were multiple narrators. And you know what? It worked. But instead, Katniss misses the battle and the reader does to. JENNIE SMASH.

And then... the epilogue. Now, I was Team Gale because the fact that Peeta was willing to die to protect a girl he "loved" but didn't really know always made me want to puke. Gale was her friend. In Catching Fire I got the Peeta/Katniss thing more, because Peeta was one of the only people in the world who could understand what Katniss was dealing with but still... I was team Gale.

I'm not (overly) upset that Katniss chose Peeta. There was nothing overly objectionable about him. He's Bingley to Gale's Darcy. Darcy's the better choice, but Bingley is lovely and easier to handle. BUT! Then, in the epilogue, we get this sentence: It took five, ten, fifteen years for me to agree. But Peeta wanted them so badly. WOW PEETA! Way to beg your way into making Katniss have kids! Way to totally respect her wishes! And because she had kids because Peeta begged for 15 years (not because she wanted them, but because he wanted them "so badly.") I lost all respect for Peeta. Every move in the entire series became suspect. And Peeta went from being Bingley to being an emotionally manipulative asshat who played Katniss and used her the same way the Capitol tried to, the same was the rebellion did. And that's how the book and series ended. With me realizing that Peeta isn't a nice guy and that Katniss is a much weaker character than she seems.